The Swallow and the Saber
Yu Han-saeng kept his eyes on the Hwa Clan Manor's side of the arena as he addressed the crowd, his voice carrying the cadence of a formal explanation.
"As Master Hwa Seok-dae of the Hwa Clan Manor has never concerned himself with the martial arts, the honor of the second duel will be upheld in his stead by the great hero Jin Mun, the Coiled Dragon Saber Guest, master to Young Master Hwa Do-reung himself."
At the mention of Jin Mun's name, a great shout erupted from among the martial artists in the stands.
"Waaaah!!!!"
A chance to witness the footwork of a Peak master whose fame resounded throughout the gangho was not an opportunity that came often.
Yu Han-saeng turned his head toward the Bamboo Forest Manor's side.
"And facing him, the one who will take up the sword in person to stake the honor of Bamboo Forest Manor is... the Bamboo Sword Master, Lord Heo Il-bi!"
Another roar shook the very ground.
"Uwaaaaa!!!"
Heo Il-bi was, by any honest measure, the finest swordsman in Nanchang, while Jin Mun was an outsider come from another land. And so the vast majority of the spectators found themselves hoping, openly or not, that Heo Il-bi would win.
Ouyang Qiangang, who had been watching with an impassive expression, turned to Heo Cho-ryeong and asked in a low voice, "Sister, you're feeling confident, aren't you?"
She glanced back at him with a bright smile. "Rest easy. I've already mastered the Flying Swallow Sword Art up to its eighth form, the improved version that Gang-jae gave me. Unless Hwa Do-reung turns out to be a master on my father's level, I couldn't lose this duel even if I wanted to."
Mastery of eight forms in a mere three days — it was a level of achievement that should have been impossible to believe.
Two things had made it possible.
First, Ouyang Qiangang had refined the Flying Swallow Sword Art only after achieving a complete understanding of the technique's core principles.
Second, on top of that, Heo Cho-ryeong's foundation in the sword had always been rock solid.
Watching her brimming with confidence, Ouyang Qiangang spoke to Akasha in his mind. Akasha, deducing the rest of the Coiled Dragon Saber Art's forms was truly remarkable. You only saw seventeen seconds of it in that alley. How did you perfectly map out the flow of the remaining nineteen forms — and their weaknesses, no less?
[Every well-made system contains a consistent design philosophy, Doctor. Martial arts are no exception. This is especially true of a coherent school of techniques like the Coiled Dragon Saber Art.]
A design philosophy... that's an interesting approach. Explain in more detail.
[Yes. I first subjected the data from the seventeen seconds of the Coiled Dragon Saber Art witnessed in the alley to precise analysis — Hwa Do-reung's muscular movements, the flow of his internal qi, shifts in his center of gravity, and the trajectory of his saber.]
Akasha projected the analyzed data as a visual model across his mind's eye.
[As you can see, every form of the Coiled Dragon Saber Art is optimized not to defend, but to shatter an opponent's defense; not to evade, but to strike back with greater force; and to manufacture openings. This is its design philosophy — the single current running through all of its forms.]
You're saying one governing principle dictates every movement?
[Correct. Using that philosophy and the data from the seventeen forms as a foundation, I ran several million simulations of the movements and qi flows that best fit this current. As a result, I was able to reconstruct the remaining nineteen forms — the optimal paths of each movement matching the observed patterns with over ninety percent probability.]
Ouyang Qiangang could not suppress his admiration. Akasha had taken the profound martial learning of the murim and deconstructed, analyzed, and resolved it as neatly as if it were one complicated computer program.
So once you'd mapped the entire sequence of forms, finding the weak points must have been a piece of cake.
[Indeed. Because the Coiled Dragon Saber Art devotes itself so utterly to raw power, the moments when its strength draws a blank and the gaps that open during transitions between forms are glaringly distinct. If Miss Heo attacks those points with her swift, unpredictable Flying Swallow Sword Art, Hwa Do-reung will collapse before he ever gets to use his strength properly.]
There was unwavering certainty in Akasha's voice.
Ouyang Qiangang had already shared every weakness Akasha had uncovered in the Coiled Dragon Saber Art with Heo Il-bi and Heo Cho-ryeong, holding nothing back.
Yu Han-saeng's ringing voice reached his ears.
"The first pair of duelists — Miss Heo Cho-ryeong and Young Master Hwa Do-reung — will now step onto the dueling stage!"
The moment his words ended, every gaze in the arena swung to the two young people at once.
Hwa Do-reung swaggered up onto the dueling stage first, wearing a triumphant smile. He looked at Heo Cho-ryeong the way a man might admire spoils he had already claimed. In his eyes smoldered an open, covetous hunger for her beauty, along with an arrogant faith in his own strength.
Heo Cho-ryeong, too, soared up onto the stage with the lightfooted grace of a single swallow in flight. Her beautiful face was calm, but her eyes gleamed as cold as frost, glittering with contempt and fury for Hwa Do-reung.
The two took their places at the center of the stage, facing each other across roughly ten paces.
It was Hwa Do-reung who spoke first.
"Miss Heo. So we meet in a place like this after all."
He drew out his words in a leisurely tone. "It's not too late even now. How about it — before you taste the bitter cup of defeat, why not promise to become my woman of your own accord? Do that, and I'll wipe this pointless duel from the record and take you into my arms gladly."
An icy voice slipped out between Heo Cho-ryeong's crimson lips.
"Shut your mouth, Hwa Do-reung."
There was not a tremor in the voice that followed. "Do not speak my name with that filthy mouth of yours. Against vermin like you, the sword is the only courtesy that applies. Today, right here, I will make you pay in full for your shamelessness."
The smile drained clean off Hwa Do-reung's face. "...Fine. If that's truly how you want to play it, I'll have you kneeling at my feet and begging!"
The two glared at each other as they tightened their grips on sword and saber. A tension on the verge of detonation filled the dueling stage to its edges.
"Begin the duel!"
With Yu Han-saeng's booming cry, the first duel began.
"Haaap!"
Hwa Do-reung burst out a shout of exertion and smashed his foot against the stage floor. He knew his strength, his internal qi, and even his Coiled Dragon Saber Art all stood above Heo Cho-ryeong's. He had already confirmed it in that alley. Victory was, to him, a foregone conclusion.
The heavy, oppressive presence pouring from Hwa Do-reung's saber pressed down on the air above the stage like a weight.
Paa-ang—!
Each time the saber cut through the air, a violent shriek of displaced wind thundered across the stage.
A satisfied smile spread across Hwa Seok-dae's face as he watched his son's confident offense.
It did not take long for that smile to vanish.
Light as a swallow, Heo Cho-ryeong sidestepped half a pace. Hwa Do-reung's powerful saber failed to touch so much as the hem of her dress, doing nothing more than gouging a deep scar into the stage floor.
Swish—!
In that blink of an instant, her blade drove in, grazing past his flank. There was nothing showy about the swordplay — it was a strike so cold, so composed, and so keen that it was more assassin's stiletto than duel.
CLANG!
Hwa Do-reung barely managed to twist his saber around and block, but bewilderment had crept across his face.
"Th-this...!"
Her sword never met his saber head-on the way it had in the alley. Hwa Do-reung's saber tore furiously through the air, but each time, Heo Cho-ryeong's blade swayed like a willow branch, letting the full force of the blows slide past. And then, between one breath and the next, it would slip into the blind angles of his forms and hunt for his vitals.
Her sword art — fast, intricate, and always burrowing into the Coiled Dragon Saber Art's weaknesses — was far too quick and precise to be simply crushed by force. Hwa Do-reung's eyes could barely keep up with the endlessly shifting patterns of her blade.
Little by little, the expression on Hwa Seok-dae's face hardened into stone as he watched from the stands.
In the opposite tent, meanwhile, Heo Il-bi of Bamboo Forest Manor could not hide the pleased smile tugging at his lips as he watched his daughter's astonishing growth.
Another dozen seconds passed.
"Ghhk..."
Thin lines of red carved themselves across Hwa Do-reung's arms and sides as he groaned. Losing his reason to fury, he swung his saber all the more wildly — and the more he did, the wider and more numerous the openings in his guard became. Heo Cho-ryeong was not about to let a single one of them pass.
Ouyang Qiangang observed it all with level, detached eyes. It was a flow he had predicted long ago; there was nothing here to be surprised by.
And then came the moment that decided everything.
Frantic and impatient, Hwa Do-reung lunged to land his killing blow — the instant he unleashed the Coiled Dragon Saber Art's ultimate form, Coiled Dragon Vortex—
Fwish—
Heo Cho-ryeong's body seemed to sink low, and then her sword plunged into his thigh like a serpent striking.
"GAAAAH!"
A deep gash torn into his leg, Hwa Do-reung's body pitched violently. Heo Cho-ryeong rose like a swallow taking wing and drove a merciless strike into his wide-open right shoulder.
Shrrk—
With a sound that turned the stomach — flesh parting, bone grinding — Hwa Do-reung screamed and crumpled to the ground.
CLATTER!
The saber slipped from his grip and rolled across the floor with a hollow ring. It was a total defeat.
For one instant, silence hung over the arena — and then an enormous cheer erupted from everyone who had been rooting for Bamboo Forest Manor.
"UWAAAAAA!"
"Miss Heo won!"
White-faced, the people of Hwa Clan Manor scrambled up onto the stage, hauled away their fallen young master, and fled down again. When the commotion had finally died down, Jin Mun, his face set like carved stone, rose slowly from his seat. Even looking at Hwa Do-reung's collapsed form in the tent, he did not so much as twitch an eyebrow. His gaze was fixed on the far side of the arena, on Heo Il-bi walking out of his tent.
Expression locked in stone, Jin Mun walked slowly up onto the dueling stage. When he drew the massive Coiled Dragon saber from his back, a heavy, murderous pressure rolled over the entire arena. The stands went quiet as though doused in cold water.
Heo Il-bi, his face composed, sent out his lightfoot technique. His body lifted like a single leaf drifting on the wind and floated soundlessly down onto the dueling stage.
With fury barely contained behind his face, Jin Mun spoke. "Lord Heo. You seem to have studied the Coiled Dragon Saber Art very thoroughly indeed."
Heo Il-bi drew the sword at his waist slowly and answered in a tranquil tone. "They say that if you know yourself and know your enemy, you need not fear a hundred battles. I have merely been faithful to that teaching."
Their auras collided in the open air, and the atmosphere above the stage sank, heavy as a pressed blade. Ordinary people could not have felt it, but the martial artists in the stands found themselves trembling, suffocating under a pressure that made even breathing difficult.
The next instant, both figures vanished from sight.
The movements of two Peak masters — and the speed at which their weapons whirled — were far too fast for ordinary eyes to follow. All that reached the crowd was the ceaseless thunder of steel striking steel, the splitting of the hardened stage floor, and the sharp scream of air being torn apart, echoing through the arena without pause.
KAKAKAKAKANG—
From Jin Mun's saber spewed a frenzied, black-tinged saber force that pressed in on Heo Il-bi from every side. The Coiled Dragon Saber Art he unleashed was a wild beast — biting, raking, crushing its prey beneath its weight.
But the sword force pouring from Heo Il-bi's blade, as he unfolded the improved Twenty-Eight Forms of the Bamboo Sword, was of a different nature entirely. It was unadorned, straight as bamboo and sharp as a stiletto. Rather than meeting Jin Mun's ferocious saber force head-on, his pristine sword qi pierced precisely through its weakest point and neutralized that furious power at the root.
As time wore on, Jin Mun's chest trembled with shock. Heo Il-bi's swordplay seemed to already know the path of every attack Jin Mun launched and every variation it could take — and to be waiting, one move ahead, blocking the road before he arrived. A sense of futility swept over him, as if he were a man desperately punching a mountain of solid rock.
Shiiiik—!
Heo Il-bi's sword qi grazed his cheek, slicing away a few strands of hair. The chill that shot down his spine froze Jin Mun's movements for an instant.
Perhaps another fifty seconds passed. Driven onto the defensive and growing desperate, Jin Mun unleashed his final ultimate form — Coiled Dragon Ascension.
HWAAAAAAA—
A storm of saber force swallowed everything within a dozen paces. And at the very instant that storm seemed about to shred Heo Il-bi to ribbons—
the bamboo sword's blade, as though it had turned back time itself, cleanly bisected the saber force and came to a halt a hair's breadth before Jin Mun's throat.
Thwap!
A single thread of cold sword qi brushed against Jin Mun's skin.
The duel was over.
Lowering his saber powerlessly, Jin Mun folded his fists in salute and bowed his head. "I have lost."
"A fine duel, Hero Jin."
His face twisted, Jin Mun shuffled down off the dueling stage.
A short while later, Yu Han-saeng, Full Moon Spear, ascended the stage and looked at Heo Il-bi with undisguised admiration as he called out at the top of his voice.
"The winner of the second duel is... Bamboo Forest Manor's own, Hero Heo Il-bi!"
"WAAAAAAAH!"
The crowd's cheer erupted all at once and pierced the sky.